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| Nellcote |
Rolling on and on
After holiday break, the Stones come back to Boston on 2d leg of world tour
By Steve Morse, Globe Staff, 1/10/2003
The Rolling Stones just took a month off for the holidays - no doubt a needed break after a whirlwind tour that started in Boston in September and had them combining arena, stadium, and small theater dates in many cities. But they are back for a second leg that includes a sold-out show at the FleetCenter on Sunday, before the band jets to Japan and, possibly, to India and China, where they have never performed.
''There's always trepidation when you put this huge machine together,'' Stones keyboardist Chuck Leavell said yesterday. ''You never know the reaction. All you can do is your best to prepare. But the bottom line is that when we hit that stage, we want to keep it fresh.''
The Stones returned to work on Wednesday in Montreal, where they opened with ''Street Fighting Man'' and again included several songs from their ''Exile on Main Street'' album. ''We only had two days of rehearsal and that wasn't enough to address changes in the set lists from our earlier shows,'' Leavell said. ''I've really wanted to do that.''
The biggest national news for this tour is that the Stones are doing a benefit performance for the Natural Resources Defense Council at Los Angeles's Staples Center on Feb. 6. It's to raise global-warming awareness, which ''is long overdue,'' Leavell said.
Leavell, who helps assemble the set lists with singer Mick Jagger, said they will look at songs they played last fall in Boston and shake up the set this time here. They may incorporate more tunes from the small theater dates, and may look deeper into their more contemporary albums such as ''Voodoo Lounge'' and ''Steel Wheels.''
''Also, our lighting director, Patrick Woodruffe, was at the recent rehearsals, so there may be some subtle changes in the lighting and design,'' said Leavell, the former Allman Brothers Band keyboardist who has been with the Stones for 20 years while keeping a side career as a forester in his home state of Georgia.
''I've just tried to pay homage to all the great Stones keyboardists who have come before me, like Ian Stewart, who was really the guy who got me into the band, and Nicky Hopkins, Billy Preston, and Ian McLagan,'' he said.
The Stones keep surprising him, Leavell added. ''Mick is in impeccable shape and he has worked with a vocal coach, so he's singing better than ever. And what do you say about Keith Richards? He continues to be the most passionate guitarist in the world. And he still has a guitar in his off hours. He's always coming up with riffs.''
Guest singers on the first leg of the tour included Buddy Guy, Solomon Burke, Sheryl Crow, and Bono. The Stones have a new opening act for this leg - Ryan Adams - though Leavell isn't sure whether Adams will sit in with the Stones. ''It's hard to say,'' he said, ''but it's always nice to have the element of surprise.'
[Edited by Nellcote] |
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| corgi37 |
What the fuck? Is Leavell a stone now? More voodoo lounge he says? So he is probably responsible for including you got me rocking. Why doesnt the ass head fucking include some undercover or more goats head soup? And pleasem to anyone who has seen them, please, please tell me he doesnt have a solo during honky tonk women and Keith doesnt have a piano fiddle about, then they both kick the keys together. Please, say it aint so!!!
P.S. What next? Ronnie and Bobby Keys having a sax/axe shoot out during Miss You? |
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| Nellcote |
Voodoo, you need to wake up earlier, for us heah in Bahston! |
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| Boomhauer |
The thing I find so alarming is how the Stones rely on Chuck Leavell so much. Like they couldn't do anything without him. |
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| VoodooChileInWOnderl |
quote:
Nellcote wrote:
Voodoo, you need to wake up earlier, for us heah in Bahston!
BTW, You posted this article http://novogate.com/board/968/135095-1.html and yours was the third time the same article was posted the same day.
See this http://novogate.com/board/968/134994-1.html
and this http://novogate.com/board/968/135010-1.html
Same article three times, yours was the third LOL
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| VoodooChileInWOnderl |
And it's not your fault Nallcote, this happens when we have the board flooded.
That's why we encourage the regulars to post private stuff using the private area, to avoid posting when there's nothing worth posting, etc |
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| Nellcote |
You know, I'm alright with it. Look, they have so many things coming at them, to delegate is not a bad thing.
Yeah, that solo during Honky Tonk Woman is tedious, yeah he's not Ian Stewart, however, I think they would be worse off without him. Was he not with the Allman Bros. for many of their years were they were king of the hill of Southern Rock. That's not all bad, is it. I think he is the years younger, fresher memory that The Stones feed off of. People are probably offended he is stealing spotlight, but, The Stones would probably say they would suffer a loss without him. |
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| Nellcote |
Voodoo, you are correct sir! Yeah, it's a great place this Rocks Off. Thanks so much for your great effort here! |
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| Maxlugar |
Corgi,
I can report that the two NY shows I saw, Chuck and Keith did not do the little "ticklin' the ivories, then do the foot stomp" thingy.
I'm pretty sure those days are over.
Thanks God!
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| nankerphelge |
In both DC and Hartford, the "new" thing on HTW was Chuck feverishly banging the keys and then falling over like he was an exhausted lil' wussy boy for doing his job.
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| T&A |
What Chuck says makes a lot of sense. Since there will virtually no (except for Sydney) theater shows upcoming soon, I suspected they might mine some of the gems from that array of songs to plug into the arenas - Heart of Stone (already done at the Oakland arena), That's How Strong My Love Is (done in Miami) and Hand of Fate being the most likely choices I would imagine.
Chuck gets slagged alot (on this board and elsewhere) - but I am an admirer. I don't think folks realize that he is one of the main catalysts of ideas and setlist changes over the years. As "musical director" he has a lot of input. I get the feeling that without him and his ideas we might be faced with some really dull setlists. I remember that he's the one who originally suggested Slipping Away be aired out in '95, for instance. |
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| jb |
Will McDonoogh is dead. |
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| Maxlugar |
No fucking around everyone, is Chuck really "Musical Director"? Like, is that a real title he's got?
Tell me straight up, guys. I can take it.
The fact that the Rolling Stones might have a "Musical Director", and he is not Mick, Keith, Charlie and Ronnie, is making my nuts take a vaction up near my lungs.
Please get back to me on this. |
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| nankerphelge |
Yes, don't know if it is on his bidness card, but I have seen him described as such. Apparently, after the SW tour, he kept a pretty detailed log of the tunes played, keys, tempos, etc and has used it ever since.
How's them nuts now?? |
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| jb |
Yes Max..he certainly is....this is not your Father's Rolling Stones. |
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| Nellcote |
What we have here is the evolution of the World's Greatest Rock & Roll Band. If this is how it is to be, WTF?
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| Boomhauer |
I don't think Chuck is a negative. I just find it amazing how the Stones are so dependant of him with dealing with set-lists and tempos and other musical matters.
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| NHStonesfan |
If Chuck wanted my opinion
Steel Wheels could be replaced
by GHS anyday and Exile over everything except maybe
Beggar's Banquet.
When was the last time Dancing with MR D
has been played live? The Kind Biscuit version is
tremendous.
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| CS |
Other article with Chuck
The Stones Get Down to Earth
Keyboardist and environmentalist Chuck Leavell talks trees
Although they might never admit it, the Rolling Stones' decision to do a free global-warming-awareness concert at Los Angeles' Staples Center on February 6th was influenced by a conservation-minded Georgia tree farmer.
That farmer is Chuck Leavell, the band's longtime keyboardist, whose resume also includes work with the Allman Brothers Band, Eric Clapton, George Harrison and the Black Crowes. Leavell's concern for better management of the earth's resources has spread to Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Ron Wood and Charlie Watts, even if they rib him a bit about his passion for forestry and environmental issues.
Trees, of course, play a big role in converting harmful carbon emissions -- a major cause of global warming -- into breathable oxygen. They're also one of the earth's most important sustainable resources. Leavell has a long list of products made from wood harvested on his farm and wildlife preserve, from the obvious -- lumber and paper pulp products -- to cellulose derivatives used in food and photographic film.
"I would like to see the country join hands with the rest of the world and try to usher in some much-needed regulations and guidelines and rules that we can all follow in reducing these emissions," Leavell says. "I strongly believe that we need to get in there and do something."
Leavell has been growing pines and hardwoods for nearly two decades on Charlane Plantation, the 2,300-acre Dry Branch, Georgia, spread his wife inherited from her grandmother.
The veteran keyboardist studied forestry by correspondence while riding a tour bus with the Fabulous Thunderbirds in-between Stones gigs. (Hired in 1982 to play tunes the late Ian Stewart wouldn't touch, Leavell now acts as the band's de facto music director, drafting set lists, keeping track of arrangements and delivering onstage visual cues as needed.) Desperate for a non-labor-intensive, income-producing method to pay estate and property taxes on the former cattle and row-cropping farm, he turned to trees at his brother-in-law's suggestion.
He's since become what he calls a "conservation-minded forestry activist," one who is in demand as a conference speaker and who can grab the ear of key players in Congress when he wants. Leavell did a little lobbying -- and delivered a quick piano rendition of "Great Balls of Fire" -- during a Capitol Hill visit when the Stones played Fed Ex Field in Washington, D.C., in early October. And the Washington Times published his October 23rd op-ed piece, headlined, "As Congress Bickers, Forests Burn."
Leavell has also written a book, Forever Green: the History and Hope of the American Forest, because he felt a need to correct misinformation about the forestry industry, and to talk about what's been done wrong -- and right -- in public and private forest management.
"I believe in sound forestry management," he says. "I believe that man is part of this equation. And I believe that we are here to be good stewards of the land."
Leavell disagrees with hard-core environmentalists who say clear-cutting is always bad and that forest ecosystems should always be left alone. Forest fires, he says, are the result of doing nothing. Leavell endorses the Bush administration's Healthy Forest Initiative, a plan to manage national forests that includes some cutting to prevent out-of-control fires and restoration of areas recently ravaged by catastrophic fires. Parts of the plan still require congressional approval.
"The key word in all of this is 'balance,'" Leavell says. "If we enjoy using products that come from the forest, we need to face the fact that harvesting has to be done. On the other hand, do you want to preserve for aesthetic, wildlife and the future? Of course you do."
To Leavell, the bigger challenge is urban sprawl caused by population growth. "We can't have forests if we don't have room for them," he says. "Let's talk about building a strip mall and putting in an operation for fifteen years, shutting it down, and moving up the street and building another one: That's deforestation. It's real hard to get a tree to grow in concrete."
But he also believes the United States should be somewhat more supportive of international anti-global warming accords like the Kyoto Treaty, which the administration decided not to honor after it was signed during former President Clinton's administration. The United States is said to produce twenty-five percent of the world's climate-altering greenhouse gases, though it has only four percent of the planet's population.
Jagger, Richards, Watts and Wood are not U.S. citizens, but the European Union -- along with Canada, Japan and most other major industrialized nations except Australia -- has signed a revised version of the treaty (Russia is expected to do so). In order to take effect, the treaty must be signed by fifty-five countries, including the industrialized nations responsible for producing fifty-five percent of the world's greenhouse gases.
With or without a treaty, Leavell says we can do much more right now, such as converting more vehicles to run on electricity or alternative fuels such as vegetable oil-diesel mixes, not to mention increasing gas mileage. He blames auto industry lobbyists for hindering these steps. "We're all in this world together," he says. "You may be concerned about your bottom line and making money, but that ain't gonna amount to a hill of beans if you haven't got a world to live in."
LYNNE MARGOLIS
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| jb |
Now you know why they are playing this rain forest affair...another Chuck Leavel production. |
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| Moonisup |
the whole problem:
chuck does the setlist |
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| stonedinaustralia |
quote:
Boomhauer wrote:
I just find it amazing how the Stones are so dependant of him with dealing with set-lists and tempos and other musical matters.
boomer i am not so much amazed as saddened by it
i have a theory on why he has the role he has and that is that following the great "split" in mid '80's (after dirty work) in order to get the band "back together" someone like chuck was needed to act as an intermediary between mick and keith... i susupect neither keith nor mick was prepared to let the other take the upper hand when it came to dictating the band's musical direction/leading the band so, instead of the whole thing falling apart over mick and keith's "battle" to see who controlled the stones, chuck has become the compromise between the two of them to keep the whole thing together - at least they both agree that he's the man for the job
just a theory - i'd love to know what goes on at rehearsals as to who really is "driving the plane"
(in unison, the (already standing) multitudes click their heels together, throw a stiff arm salute and chant "S-I-A...S-I-A..." as "the ride of the valkyries" comes over the public address system - SIA leaves the podium escorted by four armed body-guards as members of his goon squad, the notorious "purple shirts", line the front of the stage, with arms crossed and legs astride, to dissuade those who would "get too close")
query?? - if i steal max's material am i, by extension, also stealing joey's?? |
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| sammy davis jr. |
Two Freaking Days Of Rehearsals!!!! WTF? I'm glad the boys could find it in their hearts and rehearse for a whole TWO DAYS (in all reality,probably two hours)for the fans who are paying 300.00 and up to see 'em. Don't knock yourself out guys. That's why I'll just watch the HBO show. |
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| doo doo doo Dude |
One more reason to hate Chuck Leavell...he's a fucking tree hugger!!
How sad that the Stones would agree to do this show just to apease their tree-loving pianist. You think Keith really gives a shit about the environment?! Sad sad sad. Now I'm almost hoping I don't win fucking tickets to this L.A. show! The special guest appearances by Don Henley and Sting now seems like a foregone conclusion at this point.
Why couldn't they have done this in another city where they actually have trees so that a true Stonesman like myself could just buy tickets and go to a normal show like the rest of the country instead of some dog and pony show with a bunch of celebrity pooftas.
Here are my predictions for guest appearances:
Don Henley sings and drums on Wild Horses
Sting plays bass and sings Angie
Jackson Browne plays cowbell and sings Honky Tonk Women with the Dixie Chicks
Sineed O' Connor duets with Mick on You Can't Always Get What You Want and tears up a picture of Mick Taylor
Hillary Clinton sings Brown Sugar while husband Bill blows sax
Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon sing backup on Tumbling Dice
Yoko Ono sings Starfucker
The band plays Harlem Shuffle while Richard Gere recreates the classic video dressed in zoot suit and cat whiskers
Other possible luminaries: Joni Mitchell, Robert Downey Jr, Ralph Nadar, Alec Baldwin.
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| stonedinaustralia |
quote:
doo doo doo Dude wrote:
You think Keith really gives a shit about the environment?!
dude, upon what do you base this bold assertion??
and do you really think keith is going to let the stones do a "political" gig ( a very rare thing in itself) and not have some sympathy for the cause at hand
i've mentioned this i/view before when this topic came up earlier but you have now inspired me to get it out and quote directly
it's an i/view with stanley booth from 1989
of course,i don't know how well informed keith is on these issues but i'd say his postion is pretty clear nonetheless:
keith:"...We are totally at odds with the plants - apparently, they like a bit of music now and again; they've grown to like it - but we're the only ones willing to destroy the whole joint. We're sucking evrything out of the ground, pushin' all this shit up into the air. We're lucky if the jet stream comes back next year and if the fuckin' ozone layer doesn't close itself over real soon. We've all had it, anyway; this is a global problem now. It's not like we don't know it. We know it. We're so fucking smart. We know it but we can't stop ourselves. It's better to us to beat the other guy than to make things comfortable.
That's the dichotomy between this planet and ourselves. We own it, we think. So did the dionosaurs at one time and look what happened to them. This things gonna beat us if we think we own it...
We're sucking up not only the earth but the layers that circle the earth, the bits we don't understand. They've made holes with all that pollution(...) And even if you stopped it now - and they're not gonna stop it now; it'll probably be, like, twenty years - it's like permafrost, it seeps down keeps warming and warming for years and years..."(end quote)
i'm not saying that makes him a "tree hugger"...as i say i don't know how "into it" he is but when it comes to issues "environment" i'd say those sentiments are pretty clear... and i'm no expert either but you wouldn't have thought you needed to be a rocket scientist to work out that if you suck millions upon millions of gallons of flammable liquid out of the earth - process and refine it and then burn it all off in one way or another it's going to have some effect on the environemnt in which those reactions take place, would you??
anyway, way do you have such a hard on against trees??...what did they ever do to you??
[Edited by stonedinaustralia] |
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| doo doo doo Dude |
stonedinaussie-
I have no problem with trees, just problems with benefit concerts for trees in L.A. Perhaps Keith does care about the environment but I doubt he does enough to organize a benefit concert. Nope, I have Chuck to thank for this.
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| corgi37 |
So, Chuck Leavell and the Rolling Stones. Chuck. Mick. Muck. Chick. Whatever. ANd the bastard also gives visul cues!!! What, he tells Keith to play his axe with one hand and do the splits? "Hey Ronnie, shit man, light another smoke and put it in ya headstock in the 2nd verse of Tumbling Dice". "Mick, run to the left more. Mick, THE LEFT!!! Mick, see me after the show, i'm gonna have a few words to you about your attitude".
This is really odd. I wonder if Chuck will decide after the 1st ovations that he may just decide to stay onstage when the applause is reserved for the 4 remaning stones?
Whats Pete Rudge doing these days? Maybe Andrew can sort this out? |
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| Nellcote |
Everything all right in the critics section?
For the sheer fact that there is still an active Rolling Stones, who cares who is playing piano?
35 hours 15 minutes until they are on stage at the Fleet!
See you there!
Nanky....The Cuervo Express will be leaving at 1300
Are we arranging a stop in Providence? |
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| Strange_Stray_Cat |
quote:
Moonisup wrote:
the whole problem:
chuck does the setlist
Let me do it instead |
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| Honky Tonker |
I see all of this bitchin' about Chuck, but everyone insist the recent shows are among the best. If this is all you have to complain about, get a life. As someone posted earlier, as long as there is a Rolling Stones, I'm delighted. I don't care if Manilow plays the piano, as long as Keef's there. |
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